Mets Still Playing for Home-Field Edge

By Jay Schreiber

Sept. 30, 2015

The Mets have four regular-season games to play, giving them time to bask in the glow of their first division title since 2006 and to keep accepting congratulations from their formerly embittered, but now extremely appreciative, fans.

They also have something to play for — home-field advantage in their five-game division series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Going into Wednesday night’s games, the Mets held the lead in that battle, with a record that was one game better than the Dodgers’ and with an added edge: They will win the tiebreaker if the teams end up with identical records at the conclusion of the regular season on Sunday.

The tiebreaker is based on how the teams fared against each other this season, and the Mets won that matchup, four games to three. The Mets faced the star pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke in four of those games and won two of them.

Not that they did much against either pitcher. In his two outings against the Mets, Kershaw gave up one run in 16 innings while allowing eight hits. In the second of those two games, on July 23 at Citi Field, Kershaw did not allow a base runner for six innings and ended up with a shutout, striking out 11.

That was also a game in which the Mets had two .170 hitters — John Mayberry Jr. and Eric Campbell — batting fourth and fifth in the lineup, a situation so embarrassing it seemed to spur the team’s front office into action. Over the next eight days, the Mets added Juan Uribe, Kelly Johnson and, most important, Yoenis Cespedes to the roster, and the team began the surge that led it to the National League East title.

But back to the matchup: In their two encounters against Greinke, the Mets scratched out two runs in 14 innings and collected eight hits. In the first game, on July 4 in Los Angeles, Greinke pitched seven innings as part of a scoreless streak of 432/3 that he took to the mound at Citi Field on July 26.

That was when the streak ended. The Mets scored a run in the third inning, added another in the sixth and won the game in the 10th as Uribe singled off the left-center-field fence against Kenley Jansen.

That was the last time the teams faced each other this season. They will face off again when their series begins Oct. 9, but whether that game is in Queens or Los Angeles is not yet clear.

Does it matter? That is not clear, either. The success of various wild-card teams in the postseason has demonstrated that an extra game at home does not always mean that much in a playoff series. A good pitcher can neutralize a raucous home crowd pretty quickly, and the Mets’ starters, if not quite on the level of Kershaw and Greinke, can be tough.

Consider that Steven Matz, in just his second major league start, shut out the Dodgers for six innings on July 5, allowing just two hits, and that Jacob deGrom also allowed two hits and no runs when he went seven and two-thirds innings against Los Angeles in the game that Uribe won.

Matz pitched his game in Los Angeles; deGrom’s gem came at Citi Field. The better of Kershaw’s two outings against the Mets came on the road, not at home. Greinke pitched well against the Mets in both parks.

Then again, Kershaw’s overall numbers at home this season (11-3 with a 1.73 E.R.A.) are measurably better than they were on the road (5-4, 2.60). And while the Mets rookie Noah Syndergaard, who might pitch Game 2 against the Dodgers, has had all sorts of problems away from Citi Field, his best road outing this season was — you guessed it — in Los Angeles, against Kershaw.

So make of home-field advantage what you will. The Dodgers have a significantly better record at home this season than they do on the road — 52-26 versus 36-43 going into Wednesday night’s game in San Francisco.

The Mets? They are 48-30 at home and 41-39 on the road after Wednesday night’s 7-5 loss in Philadelphia — not as dramatic a disparity as the Dodgers’, but not all that different, either.

In the end, the most significant factor in the series might be Kershaw’s unhappy postseason history: He is just 1-5 with a 5.12 E.R.A. in 11 career playoff games, including eight starts.

Starting next week, he will be intent on rewriting that chapter of his career. If he can — and can live up to the acclaim that has already brought him three Cy Young Awards and a most valuable player trophy — it may not matter which team has the extra game at home.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B17 of the New York edition with the headline: Home Edge May Not Mean Much in Mets-Dodgers Series . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe